Ohio House Sends Anti-Trans Sports Ban Bill to Senate

by Wyatt Ronan •

OHIO – Today, the Ohio House approved an amended version of Ohio SB 187, adding anti-transgender sports ban language to a bill related to sports already under consideration. This amended bill would ban transgender youth from participating in school sports consistent with their gender identity. This discriminatory legislation now heads to the Senate, where the body is expected to consider the amended bill as early as today, which would put the measure on Governor DeWine’s desk.

There are more than 250 anti-LGBTQ bills under consideration in more than 30 state legislatures across the country. Of those, more than 120 directly target transgender people and more than 70 would, like OH SB 187, prohibit transgender youth from participating in school sports consistent with their gender identity. Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David released the following statement on the movement of OH SB 187:

The House’s eagerness to pass discriminatory legislation targeting transgender young people is shameful, particularly while Ohio has left a host of important issues unaddressed while the state recovers economically from a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. To make matters worse, anti-transgender legislation has historically created negative economic and legal consequences for states that dare to pass legislation. Ohio cannot afford the drain in talent or loss of business that could result from the passage of this legislation. Transgender kids are just kids and they deserve the opportunity to play sports and gain the important lessons that stem from athletic participation. By moving this bill forward without evidence of a problem, the Ohio House is revealing their backwards priorities and doing so on the backs of a vulnerable group of young people who are simply asking for the same rights as any other kid.

Alphonso David, Human Rights Campaign President

Wide range of business and advocacy groups, athletes oppose anti-trans legislation

  • More than 100 major U.S. corporations have stood up and spoke out to oppose anti-transgender legislation being proposed in states across the country. New companies like Facebook, Pfizer, Altria, Peloton, and Dell join companies like Amazon, American Airlines, Apple, AT&T, AirBnB, Google, Hilton, IBM, IKEA, Microsoft, Nike, Paypal, Uber, and Verizon in objecting to these bills. Four of the largest U.S. food companies also condemned “dangerous, discriminatory legislation that serves as an attack on LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly transgender and nonbinary people,” and the Walton Family Foundation issued a statement expressing “alarm” at the trend of anti-transgender legislation that has recently become law in Arkansas.
  • The nation’s leading child health and welfare groups representing more than 7 million youth-serving professionals and more than 1000 child welfare organizations released an open letter calling for lawmakers in states across the country to oppose dozens of bills that target LGBTQ people, and transgender children in particular.

A fight driven by national anti-LGBTQ groups, not local legislators or public concern

These bills come from the same forces that drove previous anti-equality fights by pushing copycat bills across state houses — dangerous, anti-LGBTQ organizations like the Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom (designated by Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group), and Eagle Forum among others.

  • For example, Montana’s HB 112, the first anti-transgender sports bill to be passed through a legislative chamber in any state, was worked on by the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Trans equality is popular: Anti-transgender legislation is a low priority, even among Trump voters

A PBS/NPR/Marist poll states that 67% of Americans, including 66% of Republicans, oppose the anti-transgender sports ban legislation proliferating across 30 states.

In a 10-swing-state poll conducted by the Human Rights Campaign & Hart Research Group last fall:

  • At least 60% of Trump voters across each of the 10 swing states say transgender people should be able to live freely and openly.
  • At least 87% of respondents across each of the 10 swing states say transgender people should have equal access to medical care, with many states breaking 90% support
  • When respondents were asked about how they prioritized the importance of banning transgender people from participating in sports as compared to other policy issues, the issue came in dead last, with between 1% and 3% prioritizing the issue.

Another more recent poll conducted by the Human Rights Campaign & Hart Research Group revealed that, with respect to transgender youth participation in sports, the public’s strong inclination is on the side of fairness and equality for transgender student athletes. 73% of voters agree that “sports are important in young people’s lives. Young transgender people should be allowed opportunities to participate in a way that is safe and comfortable for them.”

States that pass anti-transgender legislation suffer economic, legal, reputational harm

Analyses conducted in the aftermath of previous divisive anti-transgender bills across the country, like the bathroom bills introduced in Texas and North Carolina and an anti-transgender sports ban in Idaho, show that there would be or has been devastating fallout.

During a fight over an anti-transgender bathroom bill in 2017, the Texas Association of Business estimated $8.5 billion in economic losses, risking 185,000 jobs in the process due to National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and professional sporting event cancellations, a ban on taxpayer funded travel to those states, cancellation of movie productions, and businesses moving projects out of state.

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